After days of relentless rain, and in the brief pause before another stronger storm hits in the next few hours, I am relieved we are all home–warm and dry. It's the kind of weather event that we don't get that often here. The ping pinging of raindrops down the gutters no longer seems new. 

It is weather fit for a quiet Winter Solstice celebration. We've done various things over the years with different friends, but tonight felt right to have just our four souls around the fire drinking Chai (decaf) with marshmallows and sharing and giving each other our solstice paintings. 

Mateo was especially pleased. "It's so nice to, you know…sit around the fire…drinking some tea…my belly's warm…I want to do this every time." 

Together we celebrated the longest night, the beginning of the return of Spring, and the full moon (which was hidden behind the rain clouds) in a way that left me feeling replenished in these final days of creating, executing, and giving. 

"You darkness, that I come from,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes
a circle of light for everyone,
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything;
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them!—
powers and people—
and it is possible a great energy
is moving near me.
I have faith in nights."
-  Rainer Maria Rilke, On Darkness

 

Happy Solstice to all.